Bernice Ross

The National Association of Realtors’ 2023 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers is packed with insights that can help you take your business to the next level in 2024. The most important insights concern your lead generation and lead conversion. If you’re ready to discover what to keep and what to leave behind in 2024, the statistics and strategies cited below can help you do so.

The biggest lesson that jumps off the page from the survey is: Make face-to-face prospecting your top lead-generation activity.

According to this year’s Profile, a whopping 81 percent of the sellers and 71 percent of the buyers only interviewed one agent that they hired. These are the highest numbers I have seen since I first started tracking them over a decade ago.

Since the average homeowner knows 12 agents, if you’re the first agent who sees them face-to-face when they’re ready to transact, you have a high probability of being the agent who will get the listing or convert that buyer lead.

Whether it’s holding an open house, door knocking, meeting a past client for coffee or dropping by with an updated “Equity Checkup” before property tax time to let them know the current value of their home, these are all proven ways to be face-to-face with those who are most likely to transact now.

Referrals Still King

There’s one fact about the real estate business that has been consistent for decades. Past clients and your sphere are the best sources of referrals for your business. This is especially important since this year’s Profile found that 90 percent of buyers would use their agent again or recommend their agent to others. In addition, 65 percent of sellers found their agent through a referral from a friend, neighbor, or relative or used an agent they had worked with before to buy or sell a home.

And a total of 56 percent of the buyers either used an agent who was referred to them by a friend, neighbor, or relative (43 percent) or that they had worked with in the past to buy or sell a home (13 percent.)

Here’s another important point to note. According to the Profile, Americans are still currently moving on an average about once every 10 years. This means that for every 10 members of your sphere or past clients you meet with, at least one should transact in the next 12 months.

So this year, devote up to 65 percent of your time and marketing dollars to developing more business from your past clients and sphere of influence.

Use your print and digital marketing budget to stay in regular contact with your sphere and past client list instead of farming or shotgun marketing techniques aimed at strangers. Conduct regular client appreciation events – food trucks and ice cream socials are always popular and relatively inexpensive as well. Hold a first-time buyer seminar or a seller seminar and ask your sphere and/or past clients to invite a friend or family member who may be ready to buy their first home or sell the one they currently live in.

Prospect the 60-Plus Market

You’ll also want to seriously consider prospecting those age 60 and up because they’re finally on the move.

An important thing to note: 14 percent of all homebuyers purchased a multigenerational home in order to care for aging parents, because of children or relatives over the age of 18 were moving back home or for cost savings via “house hacking” – renting part of the property for income.

Seniors are often forced to move due to financial issues, the loss of a spouse, mobility issues, inability to maintain a large home or inability to live independently. As the Baby Boomers age out, there may be even more multi-generational homes, not just among people from cultures where this has historically been the norm, but among all families who want an older loved one nearby.

Accessary dwelling units, also known as ADUs, provide a great way for someone who owns a single-family home and has the land and appropriate zoning, to add a unit on their present property. The old-fashioned version of a “granny flat” or “guest house” is rapidly becoming a growing alternative for providing this type of senior housing.

Down Payment Assistance Is Big

Due to the inflation and higher interest rates, buyers are finding it even more difficult to save for their down payment. As the Profile reports, 38 percent said that saving for a down payment was the most difficult step in the process in the purchasing process.

If you want to work the first-time buyer market, educate yourself about down payment assistance, the programs available in your area, and how they work.

DownPaymentResource.com aggregates all the down payment assistance programs nationally. Your buyers can visit their site to see if they qualify by answering six short questions.

To quickly locate the type of down payment assistance on currently listed properties, DPR has partnered with Zillow to display this information under the mortgage tab on their site.

The most important reason you will want to pursue this, however, is that in 2022 the average amount of down payment assistance that was granted to buyers was $17,000!

This is a tremendous way to market – all you need to do is get the word out in on your social media pages, print and digital marketing materials.

What has worked well in your business in 2023 that you will want to continue to do in 2024? On the other hand, what hasn’t been working that needs to be left behind and replaced with a more effective lead generation or lead conversion strategy? There’s no better time than right now to take stock of where you have been and then chart your course for where you want to go in 2024.

Bernice Ross is a nationally syndicated columnist, author, trainer and speaker on real estate topics. She can be reached at bernice@realestatecoach.com.